Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
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Mountain Song
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ironically not...Em's verses come from an old Bad Meets Evil song he did with Royce...and that was a time when he was a good lyricist with something to be pissed about, making him then something that even Hov would struggle topping.
However, don't think that the verses rip Jay apart so hastily, because I can't help but find Hov's to be a bit more thought provoking...not as lyrical as Em's stuff, but I always like it when he says "Motherf***ers say that I'm foolish, I only talk about jewels; do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it?". Now that may not be the greatest rhyme in history or anything, but there is a lot of truth behind that statement because of the way hip-hop these days is disregarded so much simply because there's mainstream rappers writing songs about bling and riches. Like he says, they've only seen the (quite perverted) surface of what contains some of the greatest works concerning very real social and political issues ever made. So don't crap on Hov too much, he's a lot more real than people give him credit for.
Anyway, regardless of who slaughtered who on this track, it's still a good song ;)